


Isolated Atoms

by spacialstars



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Anxiety, Apocalypse, Depression, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Isolation, M/M, Minor Character Death, Oneshot, Please read my note before reading, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Science Fiction, Self-Harm, Suicide, Why Can't I Write Happy Things?, major trigger warnings, scientist!AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-20
Updated: 2017-01-20
Packaged: 2018-09-18 13:44:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9387764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacialstars/pseuds/spacialstars
Summary: After the world ended, Iwaizumi Hajime spent the last 50 years trying to fix their mistake.But they said they didn't need him anymore.He can go home.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I take issues of depression, anxiety, self-harm, suicide, and ptsd very seriously and my only intention was to realistically portray the human condition in the situations they were put in. Also know that if you are triggered by any of the things tagged, please don't read this story. I love sharing the worlds I create, but I'd rather not hurt or trigger others. 
> 
> I also took many creative liberties, so if there are any glaring issues with my "science" or anything else, please let me know!

He and I were partners. We thought we were creating a good thing. Something that would revolutionize and protect us all. 

Instead it destroyed us.

_“Help me.”_

_A flash of light so bright and hot it could have been a star._

_It burns my hair. It boils my skin._

_Will I stop him in time?_

I pitch forward grasping at my bedsheets. My eyes fly open, blinking and unseeing. It takes me a second before I register the daily overhead rumble of the floating islands and the periodic blinding white light struggling to pierce through my shuttered window shades. I breathe in, looking around my tiny apartment to reassure myself that I am home, and that everything is where it should be even though everything have long since faded from recognition.

_“We just need something that'll trigger it.”_

_“Like a safeword?”_

_“Yeah… like a safeword. Something I wouldn’t usually say to you.”_

_“Haha! Can you imagine, Hajime?”_

_“Don't be an idiot.”_

In the dim light I take inventory of my luggage still piled in the corner and my clothes scattered haphazardly across my soft carpeting. I curl into myself a bit, trying to ignore the chill from the empty space created by a bed too big for one person. My phone alarm goes off. I grope around my bed-stand to switch it off while accidentally shuffling the crumpled worn pile of letters onto the floor. 

I’ve read them a million times. All of them telling me the same thing. All of them telling me something I’ve figured out years ago. All of them releasing me from the form of existence I’ve lived for the past 50 years. 

Ending it all.

_“I exude dangerously high radiation - which is fascinating in itself. Especially seeing as you don-”_

_“But why can’t I see you? It’s not like we would do that again! I almost lost you!”_

_…_

_“Tooru this wasn’t our fault! We didn’t know what we were doing.”_

_“ They’re afraid of me now…”_

_“I can’t accept this.”_

_…_

I sigh, feeling the dry air of the air-conditioning tickle my throat. My body moves of its own accord to shift into a sitting position at the side of my bed. I hunch over, the pseudo darkness of my room closes over my shoulders. The silence buzzes. 

Counting the seconds in my head, I take every step forward as if they only represent my moments in time, until I reach my windows and pull open the shades, allowing the world into my isolation. 

Outside below is the city. It sprawls before me as a multicolored creature of data and electricity. The spinning spotlight above archs around and momentarily blinds me in one wave of white light before moving off. I never understood why floating islands needed lights like that, especially since they only reached the uppermost skyscrapers like mine. 

From up here the city seems more a circuit board rather than the living thing it is. Or was. No one drives down those streets anymore or buys food at those shops. The buildings are as uninhabited as the desert surrounding us. Even with the working bots, it's a wonder it hasn't already crumbled. 

Without humanity, a city is just a hunk of metal and glass.

Empty. Lifeless.

Just as I have that thought, a blimp floats by my window. On the side is a bright television screen flashing the same advertisement it’s been endorsing for the past forty years. On it is a man I know more than myself. He is smiling brightly, but politely. His brown curls are styled back neatly in a way I know must have been a pain in the ass even for him. His lab coat is almost too white in digital form. 

The charismatic lilt of his voice easily carries through the thick glass of my window:

_“Buy Seijoh Tech’s newest product invented with the latest in holographic technology! Amaze your friends and family with fantastical places. In stores today!”_

His name flashes in big, bright blue letters.

_Oikawa Tooru._

He smiles. He waves. 

Something in me settles into the place it belongs; an idea that existed but waited for the right moment to reveal itself.

_No more._

+++

 

Ribbons of neon lights trail along beside me and dark shadows blur behind with not a soul in sight other than my own. My motorbike, a chrome shimmer, roars past empty electromagnetic vehicles trundling along the city streets. I ignore the electronic voices recommending attendance at the next resettlement meeting and the flashing lights boasting the new at-home skin grafting products and tumor removal agents. 

Above me are billboards stuck to buildings and floating on magnetic energy. Oikawa’s happy face is plastered seemingly on every surface they could buy. 

_Relocation is the key to a happy life!_

_Do not forget your neighbor, and he won’t forget you!_

_We are one world. The world is one._

_We will overcome._

_Be the hope your children want you to be!_

_A sound home is a sound future._

I stop at a red light, more to prove my normalcy than to follow the law. At the corner of the street, a human-like S-23 model bounces erratically with a digital sign clasped in its hands eternally blinking. Its arms are extended rigidly and permanently from its body while it’s legs bend and then snap straight. If I hadn’t already seen it a hundred times before, I would have thought it was hilarious. Frozen joints eerily screech over the tsunami noise of advertisement and public service announcements. The sign it is holding declares a record low summer temperature of -42.7 degrees celsius. Even before the Relocation, it has been difficult for living beings to venture outside without freezing to death at night and burning to a crisp during the day. 

The light turns green. Things that were once frozen whir to life. Their luminous glass eyes follow the warmth of my heartbeat. I urge my vehicle to top speed and ride the familiar empty streets until arching skyscrapers and rickety robots gradually taper off into town apartments and warehouses. I veer expertly through the final perimeter gate and onto the dark empty desert highway. It's been years since the guard towers had been occupied and I wonder if they would have stopped me even if they were. 

I only look back to watch the sickly yellow glow of light pollution slowly dim in my rear-view mirror as I drive away… away…

In the lonely desert is nothing but me and the wind biting at my bones. Not even the light of the stars could battle through the orange blanket of acid rain clouds. An arid wasteland stretches far around me lighted by the fuzzy shattered moon and the floodlights mounted on floating cities and towering mountain ranges long ago cratered within an inch of their lives. Animal ribcages litter the sands while pearly skulls balance on pikes swaying atop the purple horizon.

I let my bike fly as the road turns from asphalt to dirt and the plateaus crowd around me, casting jagged silhouettes like stencil cutouts atop a blank page. I slow just enough to navigate my way through the maze of sediment formations, my wheels kicking up dirt and tiny rocks. Frost spiders slowly across my helmet visor until the inner heating system clears my vision just in time for me to glimpse a tower disappearing behind the rock outcropping. Little by little, a structure reveals itself. I reach the top of a hill and look down on a shallow crater more wide than deep. At its center is a concrete structure that swallows all the light around it. A dark spot within a fuzzy halo.

A single spotlight mounted on a single tall tower sways around the area in an easy pattern outside a brick wall spanning around the entire perimeter with cold barb coils perched on top. It’ll search for eternity, never finding another soul but mine. 

I step off and roll my bike down the slight incline and cautiously approach the double gate at the one open side of the wall. The sand crunches beneath my boots like lightly packed snow. The steel gate reaches high and ominously, taut and cold, almost like a fishing net or a giant spiderweb.

A sharp beep stops me as I approach and I look to the left where a small green spot of light blinks expectantly. A male mechanical voice cuts through the growl of my bike engine and the thin desert air.

_“Identification please.”_

I sigh and wonder minutely why they even bother, “Iwaizumi Hajime.”

_“Unidentified voice key. Please repeat.”_

“Hajime Iwaizumi.”

_“Unidentified voice key. Please repeat.”_

Cursing under my breath I yank off my helmet. A sharp chill blankets my exposed skin, but my body radiation staves off the bite. I feel the spikes of my hair crunch frozen. My breath mists away in thick rain clouds.

I glare towards the voice, “Iwaizumi Hajime!”

_“Welcome back, General Iwaizumi. Please proceed.”_

My dark muttering is drowned out by the eerie creak of the gates slowly and arduously pulling apart. I walk through before the gate could open entirely and immediately afterward they close behind me. 

I follow a familiar dirt path towards a darkened garage where cars and vans sit deep in the sand collecting dust and rust. Lights turn on as I pass. Electricity buzzes around me like ghosts mutterings of the 21st century. Cameras follow after me with a unsettling wide-eyed curiosity. 

I leave my bike and helmet in one of the empty spots at the edge of the garage and I head to one of the heavy steel doors leading into the building. It beeps and unlocks before I even touch the handle. 

The door booms close behind me. Its electronic locks buzz close and the sealant around the edges pop into place. Warm air settles comfortably around me. 

I head down the hallway following a memory I’ve kept with me. I always thought this place looked too much like a hospital. After all this time I thought they would have at least painted the walls over to brighten the place up a little. I turn a few corners before I realize a pair of quick footsteps approaching me from the other direction. 

He seems to notice me first. His arm is extended in a wave. From a distance, I note the soft brown of his hair and his wide forehead made even wider by his slightly receding hairline. As he approaches, I notice the wrinkles at the corner of his eyes and the way skin hangs rather than stretch across his bones. His smile is the same despite the crinkles there too, and so is the warmest hug I have received in years.

“Hajime!” he pulls away, but his hands cling to my elbows as if he couldn’t believe I really am in front of him.

I try not to betray my shock and slap his shoulder, making a show of sizing him up. Despite his physical age, his shoulders are strong and his back is straight. He still stands inches over me, the lab coat hanging off his frame gives the illusion of someone even taller, “Takahiro, how are you?”

He shrugs, “The same I suppose.”

“That’s something to be thankful for,” I try to smile, “Come on, do you still have tea?”

“Of course,” Takahiro leads me further down the halls, “Do you also want cake?”

“Who made it?” I smile inwardly, imagining any of the guys down in this glorified bunker baking a cake.

I expect a snarky remark, something about Issei being a surprisingly good baker or the event of Shigeru getting too much of a sweet tooth. Instead he simply smiles, not even meeting my eyes. “Me of course.”

We travel the rest of the short distance in relative silence. Takahiro comments on the state of the facility and bemoans the fact that it was built so self-sufficiently: “Seriously, Hajime. Even when the energy breaks down, I just have to wait for an hour before the place fixes itself again. I have nothing to do around here anymore.”

I hardly comment, just listening to my old friend complain and bring me up to date on his new hobbies. He doesn’t talk about the other men in the facility and is surprisingly much more talkative than how I remember him. Maybe that’s what living so long in away from the world does to a man.

We arrive at the kitchen and he sits me down on the counter to wait as he putters around. It is much messier around here than I remember, but I don’t comment on it and it isn’t my place to complain. I watch as he sets the water to boil and pulls a brightly decorated cake out of the refrigerator. He carefully slices two pieces for both of us and sets the tea just as the water is boiling. Other than Takahiro’s movements and inane comments, the silence is deafening.

After he settles in front of me with both our cakes and teas, he finally looks at me. His narrow almond eyes scrutinizes my face with a scientist’s gaze, “I guess it’s true then.”

I shrug, “Looks like it.”

“How many years?”

“Since that day I guess. I haven’t noticed until about twenty years ago though,” I pick at the frosting, wondering if it’d be too impolite to ask for more.

“It’s been fifty, Hajime,” he doesn’t look away, “You haven’t aged for fifty years. How could you not notice?”

“I’ve been too preoccupied with more important things, thanks,” I mumble more to my fork rather than to him, “It’s okay. I’ve done more good with this than bad.”

“Like what?”

I take a chance and glance up. I count the laugh-lines by his eyes and the liver spots on his neck, “I don’t get cold and when I get hurt I recover quicker than normal. I haven’t gotten sick at all. Not even by the Radiation Plague. Who do you think they send into the Red Zones?”

Takahiro winces, “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I just didn’t think about it.”

“What about when you did?”

“It’s not like I could get back here could I?” I grit my teeth, “And what’s the point? It’s not like knowing anything more would have saved anyone else. Everyone out there was gone by then, Takahiro. Dead or Relocated. I wouldn’t have made any difference.”

He doesn’t respond. He doesn’t even move. I look at him longer, waiting for him to say more before noticing his fists clenched on the table and the steel deep in his eyes. 

In that time I finally realize a few things I didn’t notice before. Not just about him, but about the room. About the entire institution itself. About the things he told me and the way he walks. About the things I saw and didn’t. About the dead silence. 

“Takahiro,” I finally mumble, letting his name settle on his shoulders, “Where is Issei?”

His adam’s apple wobbles. He blinks a few times and looks away quickly. That’s when I knew.

“What happened?” I fight the weight. The panic, “When?”

Takahiro breathes. I could see the walls building around his heart, “Two years ago. It was the Plague. He went outside too long, looking for a… noise… or something. I told him not to but…” he shrugs.

“I’m sorry,” I grip my fork, scrambling for the right thing to say, “If I knew-”

“It’s not your fault, Hajime,” he sighs heavily, “Nothing's your fault.”

His last comment weighs on me, as if he is answering the question I’ve been asking myself for fifty years. As usual, I don’t agree.

“What about Shigeru?” I insist, “Kentarou? Or Shinji? Yuutarou? And Akira?”

He is shaking his head before I could even finish. His voice breaks, “I’m sorry, Hajime. There’s just Kentarou and me now.”

I let all he’s said wash over me slowly. Something in my chest crumbles, as if the foundation of my soul disappeared; and maybe in a way it did. Without even realizing, I was living my life entirely dependent on the existence of this place and the people here. This one last constant thing on this rapidly deteriorating planet. 

So much can change in an instant. So little can warp reality. 

Takahiro watches me silently, letting the news settle in and to accept everything the way he has accepted it after so many years. He doesn’t shed a tear, and neither do I.

“Where’s Kentarou right now?” 

He merely shrugs. Not a response I am looking for, “The base is big. The last time I saw him was three days ago.”

I shake my head, stunned, “If he’s not even around, why does he stay?”

“You tell me. Even after living with him for fifty years, I still don’t understand that guy,” Takahiro looks off at the wall behind me, a thought crosses his eyes along with an odd smile. I try to read it, or to even understand it, “Having him here though…”

I wait for him to finish that thought.

He doesn’t.

“I don’t know what to say.”

He shakes himself off, “You don’t have to say anything. I’m sure you’ve seen much worst out above. Why don’t you ask me about the reason why you’re here instead?”

“But-”

“It’s okay,” he takes my untouched tea, already cold and tepid, “Ask. He’s always been the most important to you. To us all, really.”

I hesitate, swallowing past the dryness in my throat, but accepting the truth of his words much too easily than I would like to admit to myself, “How is he?”

Takahiro drops the dirty dishes into the dishwasher and leans against the counter, his gaze focuses on the tile flooring, “The same. Though sometimes… I’m not sure how to explain it. Maybe it’s better if you just see him. I don’t know if he knows how long he’s been in here or how much of what’s happening out there though.”

“What did you tell him?”

“What we agreed to tell him,” he responds matter-of-factly, almost robotic, “It’s getting better. You’re rebuilding the world like he wanted. The planet is healing, humanity is coming back, blah blah blah. That kind of stuff.”

“What about what happened with… Issei. And the rest.”

“I told him about Issei,” Takahiro sighs, “I’m sorry, Hajime. I was such a mess. But the rest he doesn’t know about. They never talked to him much before anyways except for Kentarou. Too ashamed of themselves.”

I accepted that explanation. It isn’t my place to criticize broken men.

“What about you?” I ignore his expectant expression for the words I was supposed to say next but didn’t, “How are you doing?”

He hesitates. I could tell he wants to brush off the question completely even though we both know he isn’t simply “fine”. Eventually he caves, and I watch as the young boy I once knew finally crumble into the old man he's become. I see the signs of the Plague in him. Purple veins track down the sides of his neck. His hands shake even as they grip the side of the counter. “This is the last thing I have left, Hajime. I have nowhere else to be.”

I feel a sharp pang in my chest, but I do not question what he means nor could I refute his words. Probably because nearly all of me couldn’t agree more. 

_No more._

“Do you want to see him?” he suddenly asks, almost hopeful. I could see the unsaid words in the air. 

“Yeah,” I don’t hesitate to respond, “Of course.”

Takahiro smiles again and leads me out of the kitchen and down a different hallway heading towards the center of the facility. I recognize the next hall as the living quarters. Empty dark rooms line up in even spaces; doors are closed and the windows dark. I count seven. Only the first door on my right is open. I glance inside curiously, just enough to glimpse the life left inside. His bed is made up with blankets that look like they came from two different beds. The sinking feeling in my chest tell me they probably did. His desk is an organized mess of old paperwork and datasheets. A bookshelf is balanced precariously above it holding books that look cared for but are well-worn. I wonder if it’s because they’re old, or because their owner read them far too often. The digital windows along the opposite wall displays a night forest scene, seamlessly looping the song of crickets and hooting owls. A wave of nostalgia crashes over me and I try to remember the last time I saw a cricket, or even a blade of grass. 

He notices my hesitation at his door, “I’ve had it on that forest setting for awhile. I sort of miss trees, you know?”

I swallow, ignoring his heavy hand on my shoulder pulling me along, “Me too.”

I don’t bother to look into the other rooms as I pass them. I think if I did, it would be the same as uncovering buried caskets.

_Issei, Shinji, Shigeru, Yuutarou, Akira..._

We continue on until we reach the end where it opens to what looks like a recreation room. I try not to think about the things that were left behind, and the things that should be in place of the empty spaces. The carpet is moss-colored and vacuumed. A sofa huddles around a giant television set with a DVD player and a bunch of different game consoles connected to it. In the other corner is what appears to be a small reading area. Comfy chairs circle a hardwood coffee table. Bookshelves merge perfectly into the walls holding not only reference books, but comic books, albums, and novels. Various trinkets hang around holding back the wild stories behind them. The drawings taped against the doors. The sticky notes still clinging to the edges of the bookshelves. I avoid looking at the photographs on the walls. Through the far door, I could see the adjoining exercise room, almost mocking in its vitality.

The large room looks as if many people belong there, yet somehow manages to appear untouched at the same time. Much too clean. Much too sparse. 

We turn away and down into another hallway. This one is a bit different as it is much wider than the others and at the end is a massive titanium garage-like door made of carbon, hydrogen, and a bunch of other elements to be excited about. 

The same stuff they make spaceships out of, apparently. 

Takahiro stops at the edge of the hall and turns to me, “This is where I end. You know how to get in and stuff. We never changed the passwords.”

I nod and quickly pull him into another hug. I can’t tell if he is thin because of his age or the sickness.

“I don’t know how I could have ever repaid you, Takahiro,” I mumble into his shoulder.

He doesn’t respond. He simply holds me tighter for one last long moment and then pulls away, his face not betraying the pain I know he has been feeling all these years.

I finally turn and head down towards the massive door at the other end of that hallway. As I reach it, I feel the area around me thicken almost as if I am passing through a permeable membrane. As we expected, the doors can not hold back the energy that is trapped within forever. I can see the slight discolored wear near the edges of the alloy and the crumbling of the red striped paint that runs through the center of the door. 

The security machine here is the same as the one outside. Sound is muffled in the membrane and everything is distant as I say my name loud and clear.

It beeps a few times before the alarms are blaring in high pitch squeals, lights are flashing yellow and red, and the door in front of me is popping free from its sealants. The door creaks, but opens quite smoothly for such a heavy door. I feel a burst of hot air rush viciously against me until suddenly all is cool and calm again except for the stillness of the membrane pushing against my very existence.

It isn’t until step through the door that my senses are cleared; as if the membrane was only a clear sheet of plastic and I broke right through it. A low buzz remains, which is something I expect. However, there is a rhythmic thud coming from a place I cannot quite place. I step further forward, the door behind me rumbles back into motion and in no time it is once again sealed tight as if it never moved at all. 

The next room is more like a dark, narrow hallway. It parallels a door that is merely five steps ahead. It is so dark, I can’t even see where the hall ends on either side. The only light is coming from the small window which is actually a part of the much smaller door, but no less imposing. The glass has long ago bubbled over and grew grimy with age and impurities. 

I walk forward blindly only for my foot to hit something soft. I feel around for a bit and I realize it is actually a comforter draped nicely over a soft futon. I wonder for a long moment why anyone was sleeping this far into the Red Area until I find the answer when my hands hit what feels like a piece of paper. It is worn and fragile in my hands.

I hold it towards the dim light of the window and it doesn’t take me too long to realize it is a letter addressed to me. Kentarou’s writing is easily recognizable as it is neatly spaced and even, but aggressive and dark from the hard press of a pen. The the paper seems old, the writing is definitely new. With a slight sense of foreboding, I begin to read:

_Mr. Iwaizumi,_

_I don’t know what you were doing out there all this time, but it better have been important. After you didn’t come back twenty years ago, we didn’t really know what to do. We told ourselves to keep on going and hoped you just weren’t able to make it._

_I really tried, sir. But I got scared. Our future became more and more unclear and I lost all the hope I had left. I thought you didn’t come back because you didn’t care about us anymore, even though everyone else told me otherwise._

_I ran away and Shigeru tried to come after me. He got caught in a sandstorm and was never able to make it back. He haunts me, you know. I still haven’t forgiven myself._

_I’ve been waiting here everyday, just hoping you’d come back. When you missed the appointment time again, we nearly gave up._

_We’re the only ones left, but why are we still fighting? Where are we going from here? Is there even a place left for us?_

_Takahiro won’t tell you this, but I think you came just in time. At least for him._

_I’m gone now so don’t come looking for me._

_Just end this. For all of us._

_\- K.K._

The page is creasing between my fingers before I even realize what I am doing. My eyes flit over the words over and over again until it is burning into my soul and sinking into what is left of my being. The constant thudding in the distance becomes the backdrop to my disaster. 

On a whim, I turn the page over and I find faded handwriting that is marginally less neat, but still written by the same person. Most everything is scribbled out, but not entirely past the point where I can’t read them. Here is where Kentarou kept his list of memories. I read them all.

_~~Issei~~ : dangerous, kind, fun, thoughtful, insightful, ~~quiet~~ , cool(?), cooks the best_

_Takahiro: ~~strong~~ , ~~stern~~ , boring, too competitive, quiet, reads a lot, loving, intuitive_

_~~Shigeru~~ : ~~irritating~~ , nice, show-off, ~~ignorant~~ , ~~stupid~~ , ~~goody-two-shoes~~ , scary, pretty, smart, ~~MINE~~_

_~~Shinji~~ : quiet, supportive, reliable, talented, ~~relaxed~~ , decisive_

_~~Yuutarou~~ : ~~shy(?)~~ , outgoing, talented, ambitious, stubborn, outspoken, respectful_

_~~Akira~~ : lazy(?), ~~unapproachable~~ , judgmental, motivated, interesting, opinionated_

I choke back my tears. Their names and faces blur in front of me. I want to see them again. I want to turn back time and give them back the future they wanted and deserved. 

I crumple the paper and drop it to the floor.

_No more._

I grasp at the handle of the door and glance at the nearby working camera just as an audible click echoes with a note of purpose. 

I hesitate, bracing myself for the worst, then I swing the door open with more force than I needed.

The door shuts behind me with a timid click.

Walking into Tooru’s home is like walking into an entirely different dimension. It is nighttime here too and the thudding noise is louder though the buzz stays the same. The place isn’t lit, but the moonlight allows me just enough visibility to note the comfy leather couch across an old television set that probably still doesn’t work. Between both furniture is a cracked tortoiseshell vase balancing atop a long dark-wood coffee table that would have been considered priceless if it wasn’t covered in gashes and stains. Beside the vase is a single puzzle piece nearly but not entirely torn in half.

A bookcase is shoved into the corner and judging by the deep scratches leading to it, that it was dragged there by someone who didn’t care about the previously impeccable wooden flooring. The books overflow the shelves and hang over the sides, clinging by the inch of their abused spines. To my right is a closed door and an open kitchen that is clean but also almost seems overused considering the stains on the stovetop and water rings on the counters. To my left is a spiral staircase that leads to what I remember is his bedroom. Small cameras nestle in crevices enough to seem hidden, but not enough to not be obvious. They weren't blinking and I inwardly thank Makki for being so kind. 

Despite the bland design of the rest of the bunker, Tooru’s walls are robin’s-egg blue with photographs, paintings, and drawings covering every empty space as possible. In the beginning Tooru insisted the walls be neat and empty, claiming an open room is an open mind. 

I suppose he eventually ran out of space.

The view outside the glass doors, situated on the far side of the room, are of a garden. Kudzu vines cling to the worn wooden overhang and snake out towards the garden of wildflowers. An overgrown hedge boxes the entire backyard as if the other side isn’t worth seeing. I look up and see the moon and stars. Untouched. Just as I left them. 

“Tooru?” My voice carries easily over the song of crickets and night whispers. I try to ignore the buzz and that incessant thumping noise that I can not, for the life of me, figure out where it is coming from. 

“Tooru? Where are you?” I call again. The thudding noise trips slightly, but it does not stop. I follow it to the closed door near the kitchen and it swings open easily under my slight push.

On the other side I find the source of the thumping sound. 

_Thwack! Thump, thump._

_Thwack! Thump, thump…_

“Iwa,” he sings over his own arm clubbing violently into the multi-colored volleyball ( _Thwack! Thump, thump…_ ), “I don’t remember asking for you to appear.”

I find myself in a room that looks vast, but not actually bigger than the size of his living room. I look up to the ceiling arching overhead ( _Thwack! Thump, thump…_ ) and then down where stadium lights burn and shatter against the pristine hardwood flooring. A net is set up at the center of the court, yet the only other occupant in the room isn’t using it. ( _Thwack! Thump, thump…_ ) I don’t remember a volleyball court existing here before, but I do realize that this room used to be Tooru’s research room. It’s just that anything that made it functional seems to have been removed altogether ( _Thwack! Thump, thump…_ ), leaving the floors and walls bare. 

The occupant is wearing a simple white t-shirt and a pair of loose shorts. They cling desperately to his frame ( _Thwack! Thump, thump…_ ) in all the places where definition used to hold him together. His brunette hair is wild, but not in the way I remember it, but more in the way that a person would wear their curls ( _Thwack! Thump, thump…_ ) when they no longer had a reason to impress anyone. Sweat trickles down his too pale skin just enough to pool around the collar of his shirt. He is turned away from me ( _Thwack! Thump, thump…_ ) so I don’t know how he looks nor how he knew it was me who walked in.

I take my time approaching him ( _Thwack! Thump, thump…_ ), still trying to take in his behavior and his mood. Past my initial shock, I easily recognize that the room is actually a simple illusion room, an invention Tooru created himself. The panel on the wall ( _Thwack! Thump, thump…_ ) where the ball is still hitting against is worn to the point where it is cracked and no longer displayed the court wall but the dull gray of titanium and pixels. ( _Thwack! Thump, thump…_ ) I watch as his arms and hands, still graceful, rise high over his head and whip downward at the ball. His back and neck muscles and jump, his calves spring...

_Thwack! Thump, thump…_

“Tooru,” I call his name. It burrows beneath the thumping of the volleyball.

I try again, “Tooru!”

_Thwack… Thump, thump…_

He ignores me.

I get closer and stop just a couple feet away from him, “Hey, Tooru!” 

His flinch is minuscule, but enough.

_Thwack! Thump, thumpthumpthumpthump…_

I watch the ball roll away until it reaches the other side and bounces lightly against the wall displaying the net. I wait in silence. The only other sound in the room is Tooru’s heavy breathing-

“I told you,” he speaks again, his voice clear now that it isn’t fighting over the sounds, “You’re not allowed to call me that.”

I blink, trying to piece together my memories from the last time we saw each other and only find kisses and bittersweet smiles. 

“I don’t want you here right now, Iwa. I’ll ask for you.”

I pick out the part of the sentence that bothers me most, “Since when did you go back to calling me Iwa?”

He turns to me. As I expected he hasn’t aged at all, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t changed. His brown eyes, usually expressive but the most guarded part of himself, doesn’t even hide the utter contempt and disregard he has for me. They are sharp slits like saws slowly slicing into the emotional armour I created around my heart just for him. His lips are turned slightly downward, but in a way that they become a grimace rather than a frown. A part of me feels like I deserve that expression. Another part of me feels like I’m not actually the cause of it.

This isn’t the reunion I was expecting.

Then he blinks and just like that, the expression disappears behind a sigh. His shoulders slump forward and tired, baggy eyes meet mine. His grimace battles with a bitter smile; a face I finally almost recognize, “Oh don’t go breaking on me too. Do I have to reprogram everything?”

“Tooru, what are you talking abo-”

“Stop it!” He snaps viciously, almost shouting into my face. His calm demeanor twists disarmingly quick to the type of fury I haven’t seen since just before we destroyed the world, “Stop calling me that!”

Before I even know what I’m doing, I am stepping back. My palms raise of their own volition and face outwards placatingly, “Okay, okay fine! This doesn’t make any sense though.”

“Of course it does,” he scoffs while tossing his hair in one big rough movement. I realize then for the first time that the ends are uneven. As if he’s been cutting it himself, “Didn’t I already explain this to you?” 

I am speechless in the worst kind of way, “No, you haven’t.” 

He backs off a bit, but I could tell he is more than slightly on edge. He looks everywhere but at me while the pads of his fingers race nervously along the palms of his hands. A new habit.

“Great. Fine. I should have seen this coming.” He sighs, ruffling his hair with long scarred fingers. I ache to reach out and grab them. Maybe he can tell me the stories about them and together we can wipe the lines away just like how I had to learn to wipe away mine. 

In one awkward motion, he heads over to the volleyball he had dropped, but stops halfway and instead turns towards the room door as if he’d forgotten what he was about to do, “Stay here Iwa. I’ll turn you off for real this time, then you and I can finally get some sleep.”

“Turn me off?” I breathe, the clues finally click together, “Too- Tooru, I’m not a hologram. I’m the real thing.”

He stiffens but he’s at the door already trying to leave me behind, “No no no, Hajime said he’d come on the 24th. It is the 31st. Only the 24th, Iwa. Major’s orders.”

“It’s done, Tooru. Major Irihata contacted me a day ago.” I step forward, determined, “He said we don’t have to do this anymore, and that I can take you home.”

When he looks at me this time, I am ready for the sharpness that he throws at me. Tooru has never scared me before, and that wasn’t about to change. I need him to believe me. I need him to stop this.

“That doesn’t make sense,” he hesitates, though I could see he wants to believe, “Are you lying?”

“I’ve never lied to you.”

He laughs. The sound comes out so sudden, it’s startling, “Okay, Hajime.”

Before I could respond he flicks a switch and leaves the room. The fake court darkens and disappears, leaving me in a blank, silver capsule. I see him glance back, probably just to see if I was really real. 

I follow after him into the now-lit kitchen and watch blankly as he bustles around the cupboards and flicks on the stove. His movements are familiar but not. His body is familiar but not.

“Tea?”

“No thanks. Takahiro made me some.” Though I don’t remember drinking any of it.

“Ah, Makki,” his laughter is breathless. I take a seat at the island and pointedly ignore the deep gouges in the marble. His broad shoulders contract and stretch, “We haven’t talked in awhile. I’m glad to hear he’s okay, especially after Mattsun.”

I nod even though he can’t see me, “I wish I was here for him.”

His voice is emotionless, “I wish I could have held him. I wish I could have seen them all one last time,” He sets his teapot on the stove, “Now he has no one.”

I flinch, “How do you know that?”

“Mad Dog told me,” he shrugs, watching the pot heat slowly, “He told me everything.”

“Everything?”

I fight down the irrational anger. That wasn’t the plan. What have I been fighting for all these years years if Kentarou can’t even stick to what we agreed on? The number one rule-

“ _He can’t know_ ,” Tooru scoffs, reading my mind as if I’ve been speaking every thought out loud, “Really, Hajime. Do you take me for an idiot? I already knew the Rejuvenation failed years ago. Earth is gone.”

“But-”

“I did the math,” he spins around but his glare lacks any real bite; looking more tired than furious. I watch his index finger subconsciously pick at darkening scabs, “I had to do something with all this time on my hands.” 

I fight down my panic, my anger, my despair, “So why does Mr. Irihata’s letter not make any sense to you?”

“I sort of hoped he forgot about me by now,” he smirks without humor, “It would be better that way, you know?”

The kettle whistles and Tooru is quick to remove it from the active burner. I watch the motions without really watching at all. 

The past fifty years fly by me in a blur. Twenty years of trying and failing to save a radiation-poisoned planet, and then convincing what was left of humanity that it was better to leave rather than stay and die of starvation. Thirty years of relocating not only the future, but the past. Humanity and their last treasures packed away and flown into the skies. 

Fifty full years of fixing our mistake. 

Of trying to keep him happy.

_No more._

He doesn’t settle across from me, but at the coffee table instead. He looks comfortable nestled into his couch with his steaming tea and gazing out his fake glass backdoors. The black leather cracks beneath him and a grey comforter drapes easily over his shoulders. The sweat dries quickly while his shirt remains only mildly soaked. The light of the kitchen casts a soft orange glow over his skin. Smooth, perfect, and pale like porcelain.

Timeless.

I look around again at the room that was once minimalist, now a hodgepodge of color and organized chaos. He seems out of place, yet oddly complementary - like a puzzle piece torn to fit into the wrong space. 

He doesn’t look at me, but he knows I am watching, “The last time you were here feels so long. More has changed in the last twenty than the thirty years before.”

“You redecorated,” I speak without thinking.

Tooru looks around himself blankly, “Oh, yeah. Well after everyone stopped visiting it got… boring.”

He takes a sip.

I grip my jeans tighter, my sadness flaring against my chest, “Have you…” Stop. How do I… no… I will listen, “Your hands.”

He looks down at his fingers with the same expression. He doesn’t respond though, and I think maybe it’s because he thinks I won’t understand.

I try again, “How long do they take to heal?”

“The longest was three hours,” he doesn’t look up, “How about your’s?”

So he noticed mine too, “Longer. About five hours maybe?”

“It depends on the depth and the size,” he muses seemingly only to himself, “I was just curious, you know? Our cells are constantly regenerating without breaking our bodies down. I wonder how long that’ll last.”

I shrug, “We’re the only ones so I don’t know-”

“I don’t eat anymore either.”

My mouth snaps shut. 

“I just forgot to eat,” he shrugs, taking another long sip, “When I realized it a few days later, I figured I don’t have to eat at all; which is good seeing as there’s nothing left.”

“They all died too?” I grit my teeth.

Stop.

He answers, “Every last one. Even the flowers.”

A silence falls beneath the constant buzz. The night noises of fake nature seems so far away. 

I think back to the visit after our first ten years apart. We made love in his bedroom and he told me about all the new inventions he built. I told him beautiful lies about the planet steadily healing itself and the praises of the people who still believe in his work and his visions of a peaceful future. 

“So you knew from the beginning,” I whisper along the chasm between us, “Why did you let me lie to you and pretend to be happy? Why did you let me hope for so long?”

He shrugs, “Because I love you.”

“Stop!” I stand up so fast, my stool nearly falls over, “That’s not good enough, Tooru. I missed you. I missed you so much and I think about you everyday and how shitty it must be to be stuck in here. But at least here you have the stars you think we still have. If I knew… if I knew…”

“You’d what?” He sighs.

I don’t have an answer. 

Probably because there’s nothing I could do.

_No more._

_I just wanted him to smile. I wanted him to forget._

I crumble. 

I crumble so fast I don’t remember the spaces between the moment I was looking at Tooru to the moment I am now crouching in a ball looking at my knees. My tears fall from between my fingers. 

_Count the seconds. Count the seconds, Hajime._

I do not hear him reach me, but I do feel his arms wrapping around my chest and his hands holding what was left of me. He pulls me to my feet and tugs me back to his couch where I can curl up against his chest and cry into his shoulder. Never in my life did I see myself ending up here, yet here I am.

And I feel even worse for it.

“Tooru… Tooru I’m so sorry…”

“Shh,” he grips at my jacket, somehow pulling me closer. He turns his head and presses kisses into the softest point of my temple. The familiarity of it heals some of the ache, “It’s okay. I know you tried your best.”

“But I couldn’t fix it,” my teeth grit so tightly together, my jaw begins to ache. The tears just won’t stop, “We lost everything.”

He doesn’t respond.

I hold him tighter. I drop the shell of the man I was pretending to be and let bare the raw skin of the man I became. I bury myself into him like a parasite looking for the last source of warmth left; not out of desire, but necessity. 

And he let me.

_No more._

“Tooru,” I whisper his name. It sounds different now. Like a heartbeat or a child’s first breath, “I want to die.”

“You can’t,” he doesn’t even hesitate. His voice sounds different too. Like church bells or a lover’s sigh, “Humanity still needs you. You need to guide them to a better future.”

“There isn’t any.”

“Don’t say that when you’ve already fought so hard,” he pulls away and moves me until until he is holding my face between his palms; forcing me to look at him. I realize he is crying too. His nose is running and his tears have already drenched his cheeks. He is trying to smile and I can’t help but think how ugly and beautiful he looks, “Don’t you dare say that to me again.”

I grab his face and kiss him, not caring how messy it is.

_No more._

“Tooru,” I look at his eyes. They are mine. The ones I remember.

“Yeah?”

“Help me.”

He stiffens.

The space around us solidifies. 

Suddenly we’re the only two on this planet that matters. 

He doesn’t move as as I grab his hands from my face and hold them. His expression morphs from shock to horror to despair in the time it takes for his body to heat at an unnatural speed. Tears pour down his face and bury into his teeth. He doesn’t speak, but I can see the words he is wanting to say.

_What have you done?_

“No more,” I say aloud, “No more.”

His shout of frustration is swallowed by deep _boom_ that completely levels his home.

The air around us hums in the familiar pitch I have long since come to know as the destructive energy surrounding him. Soon the room is glowing in a bright blue energy. Suddenly we’re in a heat so intense, the walls are crumbling, the wood is burning to ash, and the stone is melting to its most basic elements. 

We are untouched at the center of it all, still staring at each other. His hands are vice-like around mine and his mouth moves rapidly as if he is trying to tell me something, but I don’t hear him.

His face collapses, and he’s not even trying to smile anymore. 

He sobs.

I pull him into my arms, thinking that I can be the one to protect him this one last time. 

I close my eyes.

He holds me too and I think that I’d rather be nowhere else in the world. 

The pitch gets so high, I could hear nothing else; not even the destruction and the chaos I know must be wrecking the planet for the second time in its existence.

I brace myself for the end, but in the instant before it strikes there is a moment of silence. In that moment I do hear him, and in that moment, I feel him in every pore of my being and the crevices of my soul. 

_“Take care, Hajime.”_

There is a boom so great, it is soundless.

A flash of light so bright and hot it could have been a star. 

Then I feel nothing.

Hear nothing.

Until I open my eyes just in time to see the sun cresting above the far horizon atop the empty dunes. A bloody line announcing another endless day. 

I look around me and see a crater deeper and wider than its predecessor. The facility is gone.

I am completely alone.


End file.
